Carla Martinis

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carla Martinis (born January 19, 1922 in Danculovice near Jastrebarsko , Croatia , then Yugoslavia ; † August 9, 2010 in Vienna ) was an Austrian opera singer with a soprano voice .

Life

Carla Martinis, actually Dragica Martinis , originally came from a Croatian family. She studied singing at the Music Academy in Zagreb with Marija Kostrenčić , where she was also a student of Prof. Vicko Martinis, whom she married in 1942.

She made her debut, still under the name Dragica Martinis, in 1942 at the Zagreb Opera House as Mimi in the opera La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini . Guest performances have taken her to the National Theater in Prague . In 1949 she won the International Singing Competition of Geneva . Martinis then went to Vienna and was given the opportunity to audition with László Halász , the director of the City Center Opera in New York at the time , who then hired her as a soprano. From 1950 to 1953 she then sang with great success at the New York City Center Opera. Her first role there was in December 1950, the title role in Turandot by Giacomo Puccini.

In December 1950 she made her first guest appearance at the Vienna State Opera , initially still under the name Dragica Martinis , also as Turandot with Helge Rosvaenge and Irmgard Seefried as her partners. The title role in Puccini's Tosca followed a few days later . This time again Helge Rosvaenge and Alfred Jerger were her colleagues. In February 1951 Tosca (February 25, 1951), Turandot (February 14, 1951) this time with Heinrich Bensing as Kalaf , Aida (February 23, 1951) with Elisabeth Höngen and Torsten Ralf as partners followed. In March 1951 Martinis sang the title role in Madame Butterfly with Rudolf Schock as a partner. She later performed in Vienna under the name Carla Martinis . From 1951 to 1962 Martinis was a permanent member of the ensemble at the Vienna State Opera. Carla Martinis appeared there in over 250 performances in 14 different roles. She sang mainly the great dramatic soprano roles in the operas of Giuseppe Verdi ( Aida , Amelia , Desdemona , Forza- Leonora ) and Giacomo Puccini ( Mimi , Cho-Cho-San , Manon Lescaut , Tosca , Turandot ). Other main roles were Donna Anna in Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , as well as Madeleine in Andrea Chénier by Umberto Giordano and Antonia / Stella in Hoffmann's stories by Jacques Offenbach . Martinis had great success in 1956 as Manon Lescaut in a new production of the opera of the same name by Giacomo Puccini by director Günther Rennert , in which Rudolf Schock and Walter Berry were their partners.

On February 3, 1951, Martinis made her role debut in Vienna as Aida in a concert performance in the Great Hall of the Wiener Musikverein , which was directed by Herbert von Karajan . Her partners were Lorenz Fehenberger as Radames , Nell Rankin as Amneris and Mario Petri as Ramphis . In the summer of 1951 she sang at the Salzburg Festival as a partner of Ramon Vinay and Paul Schöffler under the baton of Wilhelm Furtwängler , the Desdemona in Giuseppe Verdi's opera Otello . In 1952 she appeared at the Grand Opéra in Paris as Amelia in Giuseppe Verdi's musical drama Un ballo in maschera . In 1952 she sang at the music festival in Aix-en-Provence , the Donna Anna . In 1952 she also appeared as Tosca at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin . In 1952 she sang at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro , the Turandot and the title role in the opera La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli .

Also in 1952 she made her debut at La Scala in Milan as Elena in Arrigo Boitos Mefistofele on the side of Renata Tebaldi , Ferruccio Tagliavini and Nicola Rossi-Lemeni under the musical direction of Victor de Sabata . In 1952 she also took over Elisabetta di Valois in Verdi's Don Carlo at La Scala with the conductor Antonino Votto and with Gino Penno , Ebe Stignani and Nicola Rossi-Lemeni as partners. In 1953, Donna Anna again followed in a production with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf , Léopold Simoneau and Mario Petri, which Herbert von Karajan directed.

1953 she sang at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples , the Tosca as a partner of Ferruccio Tagliavini. Also in 1953 she gave a successful concert with the tenor Giuseppe Di Stefano in Vienna, again in the Great Hall of the Musikverein . In 1954 she sang at the San Francisco Opera , the Leonora in Verdi's La forza del destino . In 1956 she appeared again in the title role of La Gioconda at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste .

A tragic family event in the early 1960s, at the height of her musical work, led to the early abandonment of her career. Martinis then withdrew from the public for a time.

In recognition of her artistic merits, Carla Martinis was appointed Austrian chamber singer by the Vienna State Opera in 1955 . In 2002 she also received the Golden Decoration of Honor for Services to the State of Vienna . The laudatory speech was given by Kammersänger Heinz Holecek .

Carla Martinis last lived in Vienna.

Audio documents

The musical oeuvre of Carla Martinis, passed down through radio recordings, live recordings and records, has been largely re-released on CD in recent years, partly in special historical documentations.

Carla Martinis is best known to collectors of historical radio recordings for three opera recordings that were made in the early 1950s for Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk in Hamburg . As Dragica Martinis, she is Desdemona in Wilhelm Furtwängler's Otello (1951 Salzburg) published by EMI , with Ramón Vinay and Paul Schöffler . In 1951 she was also Donna Anna in a Don Giovanni recording in Italian under Leopold Ludwig . In 1952 Martinis sang the role of Leonora in Giuseppe Verdi's opera The Power of Fate . It was conducted by Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt . Her partners were Martha Mödl as Preziosilla , Rudolf Schock as Alvaro , Josef Metternich as Don Carlo di Vargas and Gottlob Frick as Father Guardian . In 1953 the opera Tosca was recorded with Rudolf Schock as Cavaradossi and Josef Metternich as Scarpia . Wilhelm Schüchter conducted it . The two Verdi operas were recorded in German, in line with standard performance practice at the time.

The voice of Carla Martinis was "nice and warm timbres for Verdi, but also had brilliant highs with Puccini."

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kutsch / Riemens: Large song dictionary . Third edition, Munich 1999, Volume 3, p. 2346 and the DNB consistently indicate 1922 as the year of birth. The International who's who in music and musicians' directory , p. 419, on the other hand, gives 1921 as the year of birth. Occasionally, 1920 and 1924 are also mentioned as the year of birth.
  2. ↑ Season 1950/51, February - August 1951 ( Memento of the original from December 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Cast list of the Vienna State Opera.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / guschlbauer.com
  3. ↑ List of roles by Carla Martinis in: Chronik der Wiener Staatsoper 1945-1995 , Verlag Anton Schroll & Co., Vienna and Munich 1995, p. 501/502, ISBN 3-7031-0698-0 .
  4. ↑ List of roles Dragica Martinis Official website of the Salzburg Festival (with search function).
  5. ^ Tosca (1952) Homepage of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, archive 1952.
  6. ↑ Award for Isabella Gabor, Luise Prasser, Carla Martini's press release of July 4, 2002.
  7. ^ Walter Herrmann / Adrian Hollaender: Legends and Stars of the Opera , pp. 53/54. Leykam publishing house. Graz 2007, ISBN 978-3-7011-7571-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Martinis, Carla
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Martinis, Dragica (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian opera singer
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Danculovice near Jastrebarsko , Croatia
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 2010
Place of death Vienna